Saturday found me at the movies—the silent movies, that is. I saw five silents from the Hal Roach studio, starring Toto (not the one you’re thinking of), Will Rogers, Charles Murray, Lucien Littlefield, Arthur Stone, and Clyde Cook. Not exactly household names, but they made some very funny movies.
Do Husbands Deceive? (1918) was essentially a vehicle for Toto, as a pint-sized, pseudo-Keystone Kop, who got into all types of shenanigans as he ended up assisting and then thwarting a burglar. The print, from the Library of Congress, as were all five of Saturday’s showings, had some quality issues and ended rather abruptly, but it was very interesting to see Toto. Apparently, in real life he was quite an eccentric—even having a clause in his contract that said, “Toto will not have to jump in the water at any time.” Kudos to Steve Massa for the informative and well-written program notes, and to Ben Model for the superb live piano accompaniments.
Jus’ Passin’ Through (1923) starred Will Rogers as a tramp who arrived via train in a town that prided itself on the fact that no tramps were allowed. It turns out that he arrived on the day before Thanksgiving, and the town was providing a special meal for all of the men in jail. So Will sets out to get himself arrested but that doesn’t work out too well, and he gets on the bad side of the sheriff. Then, as fate would have it, he gets invited to the sheriff's house for Thanksgiving dinner because they had thirteen people at table and that was just too unlucky. The sheriff returns, Will skedaddles with his food, and finally gets to eat it on the next train out of town.
Somewhere in Somewhere (1925) was pretty funny, for a story about two hapless soldiers in the trenches during World War I. The special effects were interesting to see, involving mortar shells, explosions, and dirigibles. At one point, our sad sacks were sitting atop what was left of a brick building. A mortar shell hits the building, and the top shifts to the right. The next shell tilts it back to just about even keel, and then the third destroys the building and sets the soldiers soaring.
Sherlock Sleuth (1925) had Arthur Stone as a house detective in a fancy-schmancy hotel. Unfortunately, there was also a burglar casing the joint, assisted by his moll who worked her charms on our detective hero. A very funny bit involved a dog tearing a hole in the moll’s stocking and stealing a wad of cash, depositing it into our hero's hat (the dog was retrieving the hat—hey, it’s a slapstick comedy!), and returning the hat and the cash to our hero. A masked ball at the hotel creates lots of mayhem, including when our hero, in a lion costume, is confronted by a real live lion. All ends well, as the hero catches the crooks, but only after the lion has driven a paddy wagon through the countryside (hey, it’s a slapstick comedy!).
Starvation Blues (1925) has two itinerant musicians trying to scrape up some dough in the middle of winter. Most of the funny stuff involves the winter weather—massive amounts of snow falling off of roofs and building awnings, one of our musicians becoming a human popsicle, and a fire hydrant gushing water (and a cop) upwards and then freezing solid, with the cop atop the frozen tower.
All in all, a fun and funny afternoon.
ConcertMeister
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